


Mistle

by acrosspontneuf (FangedAngel)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:55:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22293676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangedAngel/pseuds/acrosspontneuf
Summary: Shepard finds mistletoe, shenanigans ensue.
Relationships: Cullen Rutherford/Female Shepard (Mass Effect)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Mistle

**Author's Note:**

> Commission written for [Katie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katieee/pseuds/Katieee), creator of the wonderfully badass and amazing Mollie, as well of The Two Commanders. Treat yourself to reading TTC, some of the best writing you’ll encounter.   
> The original etymology for mistletoe combines the Germanic ‘mistle’ with the Old English tān, which means twig, which I’m using as an excuse to the name variation in Thedas.

Cullen hasn't slept in two nights. Not that she's keeping count, of course. She's just vividly aware of it when she looks at him, at the dark circles under his eyes, at the way his hands shake. He hasn't said a word to her, burying himself under mountains of work, hiding in that way of his that makes her want to blow something up. She goes into the courtyard instead, determined to smash some dummies to dust by throwing her biotics at them until everyone around her runs off in either discomfort or fear. 

Her plan is thwarted when Cassandra looks up from her book, takes one glance at her, and leads her away with a very determined hand wrapped around her elbow in an iron grip. They're halfway across the bridge by the time Shepard starts swearing and protesting at once and all of it is soundly ignored. 

'Where are we even going, Cass?' she asks, and even to her own ears her voice sounds petulant. 

Cassandra gives her a raised eyebrow that says far too much, and leads her on the mountain path, away from the fortress. 

‘I need some elfroot and I don't want to take it from the apothecary's stock. And the task will go quicker with you,’ she says with a smile that Shepard feels only the slightest urge to punch. 

It’s a flimsy excuse: they pick more than enough elfroot every time they go on an expedition. Shepard can almost instinctively feel its presence now. The smell of it is always on her hands because she helps with making potions to ease Cullen's pain every day. Sometimes he kisses her hands and holds her palm to his cheek and looks at her like she's that god of his. He hasn't looked at her much lately, though. She understands the reason behind all this. It just doesn't make it any easier.

Shepard focuses instead on listening to Cassandra's voice, telling her about the book she's reading. The mountain air is as chilly as ever, but it's so sunny that there's an insinuation of far-off spring in the air. Snow crunches under her boots and she inhales the cold, lets it fill her lungs. She feels less angry already and she can't even resent Cassandra for dragging her along. Shepard gets easily restless at Skyhold. It's claustrophobic to be stuck in just one place for weeks. She's been grounded for so long but everything in her rebels at it still. Her ship could also be confining, but it was in constant movement between the stars. She misses that freedom. It's something Cullen will never be able to understand, even though she can see how much he would like to know the magnitude of what she feels. 

Shepard doesn't notice the mistletoe at first, but then the corner of her eye registers redness against the snow and the shock of familiarity almost takes her breath away. She's not seen it anywhere else, but now here it is, right in front of her, in this nondescript place, curling around the branches of a drying tree. Shepard rushes over and starts gathering it under Cassandra’s astonished gaze.

'They have this where I come from! Mistletoe! I haven't seen it in years.' 

'That's mistletwig, Shepard. It's a pest.' 

Shepard mock gasps, loudly, and it echoes around them, making Cassandra's expression ever more sour. 

'It's pretty. Don't you use it for decorating at Christ-uh, Satinalia? It's a very old tradition at home, very popular in old…uh, stories. If two people find themselves underneath it, they have to kiss. Surely you have something like that.' 

'Absolutely not. Why would anyone do something like that? It makes no sense. ‘

'Because it's fun. Do you want to try?' Shepard asks, holding her bundle of mistletoe over her head and pouting her lips as much as she can at Cassandra until the Seeker is so flustered she trips over her own legs when she walks away.

By the time they return to Skyhold, Cassandra is so fed up with Shepard’s constant mistletoe jokes that she’s striding far ahead, clutching the elfroot she’s gathered so tightly that she has a trail of leaves following her. Guards patrolling the bridge turn to look at them as they pass, Cassandra muttering angrily about obstinate and obnoxious people, Shepard grinning wildly while holding her mistletoe like a trophy. It’s not the weirdest sight that Skyhold has ever seen.

She asks a scout dawdling in the courtyard about Cullen’s whereabouts and she is informed that the other commander has taken to his bed for a few hours, which is excellent in more than one way. Her plan must be carried out while he’s not paying attention.

Five minutes into the endeavour, Shepard finds herself longing for duct tape, that pinnacle of technology. Skyhold has many nooks and crannies, but it also has high ceilings and all the ladders seem to have vanished. The leaves of the mistletoe are leaving marks on her hands, and she decides that she needs help. 

She bursts into Sera's room first, narrowly avoiding a dagger to the face for startling her. 

'I'm planning some mischief that will annoy Cullen,' Shepard says before briskly walking back through the tavern with everyone staring at her. 

The library is next, and she has to exert all her self-control to keep herself from throwing pokey mistletoe leaves at Solas' head. Dorian is much harder to convince, so Shepard steals the book he was reading and hurries away, the soft sound of silk robes following her, along with a steady stream of Tevene swearwords. 

Her assistants end up being no help at all. Sera wraps Shepard up in all the twine they've stolen from the kitchens, and Dorian complains so much that Shepard sends him away to keep from flinging him off the battlements. There is twine in her hair when Cole finds her in the dust of one of the unused tower rooms. An awkward silence hangs between them, but then Cole tells her where the good ladders are and that is all the information she needs to make this mission a success. 

Cullen emerges bleary-eyed from his office when she's just about done on the battlements. She hands two ladders to two different scouts and walks over to Cullen, who observes her progress warily. He's not shaking, though. Shepard will take that as a win. 

'What are you up to?' Cullen asks when Shepard reaches him, his hands finding their way to her hips instinctively. 

She grins at him and it only seems to make him more worried, but she kisses the look off his face, feeling him blush as she frames his cheeks with her hands. 

'Sorry,' she says, when he sputters something about the guards seeing them. 'Mistletoe.' 

She points above them, where she's managed to hang mistletoe from the doorframe. Cullen stares at it, then at her, and the lack of comprehension on his face is both adorable and hilarious. 

'That's mistletwig and I don't see what that has to do with anything.' 

She kisses him again before she explains. 

Within a week, Skyhold descends into chaos as it learns of Shepard's mistletoe tradition. To save Cullen's face from constantly looking like it’s burning, she drags him to locations on her mistletoe map at random throughout the days and evenings and during one or two late nights. She does it when she's fairly sure no one will see them, but the entire fortress hears of it despite her care. The sprigs of mistletoe wilt but the red berries attract everyone's attention. Dorian and Sera share what they know one evening in the tavern, and couples new, old, and transient start following in Shepard's footsteps. 

In the meantime, Shepard kisses Cullen under the staircase in the Herald's Rest. She kisses him on the battlements. She kisses him in front of Varric's fireplace in the Great Hall, and also behind the Inquisitor's throne. She kisses him in the hidden library, and then once more in the vault. She kisses him in the hall between Josephine's office and the war room. 

She kisses him in the armoury, but she gets the timing wrong, and they get chased out by Cassandra's judgiest expression. She kisses him in the stables. She kisses him in empty rooms. Most of all, she kisses him in his bed, their bed, as mistletoe hangs over them from the barely-there ceiling (she'd needed to plead with Dorian for that one). Throughout it all, Cullen kisses her back every time. He laughs until all the shadows are banished from his face, and he sleeps far better than before. His hands aren't shaking when she holds them in hers. It's a silly distraction, and she's very aware of it, but it's worked as she intended. 

Shepard isn't aware of the mayhem until Josephine summons her and informs her in much more diplomatic phrasing that the fortress is now full of couples making out everywhere at all times, which is, of course, not quite in keeping with the Inquisition's standards. 

Shepard doesn't do well with exposure to Josephine's disappointed face so she dutifully gathers every sprig of prickly wilted mistletoe. She then burns it in the courtyard, holding Cullen's hand as he attempts to keep his laughter in check. Might as well make the ending grand too.


End file.
